Chapter 8: Forgotten by her Pack

A Sun Pack scout, taller than Kade, but slimmer, his cloak bearing that claw-split sun, cowers in the underbrush, speaking softly to someone hidden.

His lips moved along his voice, low as a whisper but piercing as a bullet: “Jason demands she is alive .” 

My breath froze in my lungs, the words splitting through my ears to my bone. My head drooped down like someone who took a bullet to the head as I stared at the journal “He wants me…..alive?” I ask myself.

“What for?” I asked again but this time to the lifeless journal "To skin my flesh, and shed my blood slowly, just as my cold-hearted stepfather, Gabriel said to my face in that low and piercing tone?”

‘‘Yes’’ something whispered like a voice in the air, I raised up my head swiftly but there was nothing in sight, only a rustling sound from the underbrush.

The scout had disappeared into the pines, my lips trembled in fear, I wrapped my hands around the journal trying to find solace, its pages a burden I cannot bear alone. 

I’m within sight of the truth about Father’s passing, Gabriel’s treachery, perhaps my mother, Evelyn’s involvement, but each move draws me further into Jason, and the Sun Pack's claw. 

The journal is a map to every secret they've buried, and I must keep it away from them, yet my room offers no refuge, especially not with Kade smashing through, or papers slipping beneath my door. 

Two days have blurred away, and the walls are tightening around me, every shadow a danger I cannot identify. 

A deep growl echoes from the corridor, harsh and throaty, pulling me away from the window. Gabriel’s voice penetrates the air, sharp as a blade: “Fetch her to me, at once.” 

My heart jumps, the journal falling from my grip to the ground, its pages spreading out like a revelation. 

I rush to conceal it, pushing it beneath my worn out gown, yet the growling intensifies, boots pounding nearer, and I realize, time's over, and Gabriel has lost his patience. 

The echoes of his sharp voice slowly fades away as his guards drag me down the corridor, their holds crushing my arms, the journal’s jagged corners digging into my sleeve where I tucked it. 

My swollen hand aches with a dull burn, yet my heart’s a wildebeest, racing violently as we arrive at his chamber. 

The door slowly opens, laying bare Gabriel straddle on a chair covered in fur, his grin sharp beneath the flickering torchlight. 

“The pack’s finished with you,” he utters, his voice slick as venom, sticking out a scorched picture of Father, his face, his smile almost consumed by flames, my final memento from the times he’d lift me onto his shoulders. 

“Nobody knows his name, or yours anymore” My fury was wild with pain, and revenge. I wanted to scream so loud, but his wolves surrounded me, their eyes shining with allegiance to him, not to me. 

I gulp down the flames, my strong hand clenched tight, the diary a hidden truth I can’t allow him to sense. 

Just two days until the trade, and he's humiliating not only me or my name, but my bloodline as well, all of it. He spits at my gown, and orders his guards to drag me out to the square.

The square was once a playground when Father was alive, we would gather round a crackling fire at night under the moon's light and listen to all the stories he made up.

Now as I listen, in search of father's soothing voice all I hear is a boiling pot of hatred, with the pack assembled under Gabriel's leadership, their shouts “Outcast! “Exile!” a rhythm vibrating the ground. 

I’m pushed to the middle, mud scraping my knees, the knife in my boot a hidden flash against their contempt. 

Faces I recognize wrenches with malice, hunters that brought food to Father, weavers that made clothes for me, and whelps I played alongside. 

Then Lila came forth, my best friend since childhood, and partner in crime, her brown curls springing, stone eyed where they once carried joy. “You're not the daughter of an Alpha,” she hisses, her words a stab in the back. 

Lila, my trusted friend, who wove my hair, who exchanged whispers beneath the shining stars, now turns against me, her voice raised for all to hear. 

My heart breaks, a crack opening wide, and the pack surrounds me, rocks held in rough palms, their chants a wave pressing my name. 

I stood tall, chin lifted, blood running from a gash on my cheek, determined not to fall down even as their shadows rose higher. 

But their voice kept echoing “Run!, run!, run!," loud enough to wake the dead, so I ran, so deep into the forest they're voices were only a fade to my ears

I held the journal strong, tears blurring my vision, pine branches striking my face as I trip over thorns. 

I take a shaky breath as Lila’s voice whispers sharply behind me: “Marcy, hold on!” I turn, pulling out the knife in my boots, but her hands are raised, eyes alert. 

"I had to….they're always watching," she murmurs, looking over her shoulder, the fear in her eyes looked so real, or could it be? “Gabriel is having a meeting with the Sun Pack this evening.” 

My heart skips a beat, Lila, acting as a double agent? The girl who understood my dreams now dangles secrets like lures. 

Deep inside I desire to trust her, to hold onto the friend I once had, but her fleeting look toward the trees yells ambush. "Why are you telling me this?" I snap, voice quiet.

She pauses briefly, then vanishes, her silhouette blending into the twilight, leaving me with uncertainty and a clue I can’t overlook. 

Her voice reverberates, they're always watching, and I ponder: is she rescuing me, or giving me away?